This invention relates to devices for removing stoppers from necked containers, and particularly containers used to store beverages under pressure, such as champagne.
One of the major causes of eye injury each year is errant flying corks from champagne bottles and other corked bottles having liquid contents under pressure. At serving temperature, the pressure in a champagne bottle is about ninety pounds per square inch, and a cork spontaneously ejected from a bottle after removal of the wire mesh cage attains a velocity of about forty-five feet per second when it strikes the eye. Since a cork travelling at this speed can reach the eye from a distance of two feet in less than 0.05 second, and as the blink reflex takes about 0.1 second, the cornea of the eye usually receives the full impact of the cork. The problem of eye injuries due to flying corks has been aggravated by the recent introduction of plastic stoppers.
Although there is a preferred technique for removing corks from pressurized bottles, even waiters and waitresses who presumably are instructed in the proper technique suffer eye injuries from flying corks. While safety devices have been designed in the past to provide a protective stop against unlimited motion of a cork during removal, these devices typically employ awkward lever type arrangements which are inconvenient to carry and somewhat cumbersome to use, particularly since most devices have long lever arms extending perpendicular to the axis of the bottle.